English
version by Ian MacDonaldBy
kind permission of Lubbe Verlag, Bergisch Gladbach

Shostakovich
was a man of
contradictions. The family memories collected in the monograph
by Seroff
convey the picture of an unusually gifted young man,
incredibly
hard-working, keen to improve the living standards of his family
- and,
simultaneously, an everyday nuisance. These inborn character
features
became more and more prominent as, throughout the years, his life
was
submitted to severe tests and experiences, when the problem was not
to
provide himself and his family with adequate livelihood, but how
to
survive and avoid repression. So, his difficult character
underwent
changes, which eventually led him to a state wherein it would be
hard to
speak about Shostakovich as a human being responding in an ordinary
way,
thinking rationally and acting consistently.

His behaviour was
beyond
unequivocal evaluation. Some people saw an opportunist in him,
others
judged his actions as signifying his disapproval of the
Soviet
authorities, still others saw him as an embodiment of a typical
Russian
"possessed" man who pretends to be not quite sane and, under the
guise
of mental deficiency, discloses to the world in an obscure manner
what
is true, and, by coarse, colourless, and deliberately awkward
words,
reveals his thoughts. Probably he was partly all of these things,
and
they came inseparably together in him - like his remarkable modesty
and
lack of belief in his own potentials, blended with his
morbid
(sic) ambition to be the first and the best.

Obviously,
his
behaviour and demeanour did not win people's hearts, though
many
considered themselves his friends. However, in his whole life he
had
only a few real friends; their names can be reeled off quickly:
apart
from Sollertinsky, there were undoubtedly Isaac Glikman and
Leo
Arnshtam. His friendship with Mravinsky was irrevocably broken in
the
early Sixties. His relations with Shebalin were also clouded, as well
as
with the young Denisov, whom he strongly supported for some time.
Of
course, he had a group of devoted musicians who can also be regarded
as
his friends: the Beethoven Quartet, David Oistrakh,
Mstislav
Rostropovich, Moisei Vainberg - but these were, mainly,
artistic
friendships.

This stemmed not only from the fact that, during
the
composer's most difficult years, people broke with him for their
own
security, but also because Shostakovich used to keep people at bay.
It
suffices to mention that he addressed very few people by their
Christian
names and he would refer even to his closest friends in a formal
way or
by means of their patronymic. Hence, to Sollertinsky he would say
"Ivan
Ivanovich", to Glikman "Isaac Davidovich", although not
always
consistently. All of his life he used "Mister" to Mravinsky, and
with
Oistrakh they called each other by their first names only
in
Shostakovich's final years. A factor in his isolation was his
latent
inability to build up contacts. He himself wrote about that
while
recalling his first encounter with Sollertinsky; yet when raging
terror
created general fear, Shostakovich could become absolutely detached.
The
proof for that comes from the memoirs by Nicholas Nabokov,
Arthur
Miller, and Hans Mayer. Having few friends, Shostakovich
inevitably
socialised with people who played a very ambiguous role in the
cultural
life of the Soviet Union.

My desire to make
contact
with Shostakovich arose in the late Fifties. The reason why
was
certainly his music rather than him as a person, because what I
knew
from official sources in those days did not encourage one to make
an
acquaintance. In Poland, as in allcommunist countries, Shostakovich
was
associated first of all with pieces like Song of the Forests
and,
at best, the "Leningrad" or the Fifth Symphony (defined solely as
"the
answer of a Russian composer to just criticism"). Apart from such
works,
there were his many unbearable propaganda-ideological
statements,
blatantly mirroring the attitude of the communist Party, which,
for a
majority of the Polish intelligentsia, were enough to condemn him.
Such
masterpieces as The Nose and Lady Macbeth and his
early
symphonies (except the First) were not widely known, Soviet
propaganda
insisting that they were artistically degenerate. Thus, for
me
Shostakovich existed only as the composer of the First, Fifth,
Ninth,
and Tenth symphonies, the Piano Quintet, and the Cello Sonata,
since, in
those years, practically nothing else was performed.

The First
and
Tenth symphonies sufficed, however, to open to me, as a teenage
music
student, a fascinating new world of sound. The rarity of his music
in
itself made me eager to get to know as many of his pieces as
possible,
yet the chances to do so were extremely restricted. A few
people
privileged to meet Shostakovich personally brought him closer to me
and,
in their descriptions, an official advocate of peace and the
principles
of Socialist Realism was replaced by a tragic victim of the
communist
regime, an intimidated man, deprived of the liberty to create and
act.
Unfortunately, school obligations did not allow me to attend the
"Warsaw
Autumn" of 1959 (I lived in Cracow then), so I lost a chance to
meet him
in person.

Yet since his music made me more and more impressed
(I got
to know the then-new Eleventh Symphony at that time), I decided to
write
a letter to the master and unfold to him my feelings under the
influence
of his art. It was a long letter and I think I enclosed some of
my own
pieces. As I didn't expect to hear from him, my joy was great
when,
contrary to hearsay about his inaccessibility, a reply came after
a
couple of weeks, including a photo with a dedication. It coincided
with
my composer's debut, so, full of excitement, I described this in my
next
letter, simultaneously thanking him for his quick answer. Another
letter
arrived, this time on a piece of thin card, perhaps the remains of
some
package, contained these few words: "Dear Krzysztof! I congratulate
you
on your first concert. Wishing you creative success.
Affectionately
yours, D. Shostakovich." This is how a correspondence began
- as yet, of
course, not intensive - between a world-famous composer and a
teenage
highschool pupil, later a conservatoire student. Shostakovich's
letters
were always very concrete and brief though warmhearted, which made
me
resolve to visit Moscow one day and meet him in person.

In those times, a trip abroad - even to the
so-called
countries of the people's democracies and the Soviet Union - was
an
exceedingly difficult undertaking. Private trips were basically
not
allowed and places in group excursions were hard to come by. After
a
couple of months of various problems, I finally succeeded in
arranging
the formalities, and wrote to Shostakovich that I was coming to
Moscow
and would be delighted to see him there. On the eve of my departure
I
received the following letter: "...Unfortunately I will not be able
to
meet you, since at that time I will be away from Moscow..." Yet I
did
not drop out of my trip and when I reached Moscow, I made up my mind
to
try my luck come what may.

I went to the office of the
Composers'
Union where Khrennikov's personal secretary informed me with
forced
politeness that Dmitri Shostakovich was at home (!) and would stay
in
Moscow for a week, but that he was too busy to receive visitors.
Giving
me his telephone number was out of the question. I sensed that my
wish
to meet him was not welcome among the officials of the Union - yet
I
never managed properly to assess the extent and depth of their
resentment
towards Shostakovich. When in the late Eighties I asked one
of the more
polite high-ranking Union functionaries to hand over a small
parcel to the
composer's widow, I found out after several months that it
had not been
delivered because "no one knows where Mrs Shostakovich is".
Meanwhile the
"unobtainable" person lived four floors above in the same
building
throughout all that time!

The following year, having wasted
several
weeks on arranging passport formalities I set off again to
Moscow. At that
time the composer did not dwell in Kutuzovsky Prospect,
but in the very
centre of Moscow in a small street previously called
Brusovsky Close, for
years inhabited by many outstanding artists. Among
others, Vsevolod
Meyerhold lived there from 1928 till his death. In this
street there also
lived the outstanding singer Antonina Niezdanova,
whose name the street
assumed after her death. Here too stands a small
Orthodox Church, one of a
few not closed down even during the worst
years. Niezdanova Street is an
offshoot from one of the main Moscow
traffic arteries, Tverska (renamed
Gorky Street when Gorky was still
alive) and ends near Hertzen Street,
known for the Conservatoire with
its famous Piotr Tchaikovsky Great Concert
Hall. The first part of
Niezdanova Street is connected by a small alley to
the equally small
Ogariev Street which runs parallel with it. In the late
Fifties this
alley was built over by a complex of many-storied edifices in
the
Socialist Realist style. This wing of Niezdanova Street was occupied
by
the Soviet Composers' Union and its branch, the Russian
Republic
Composers' Union, which for eight years was headed by
Shostakovich.

Here also was the editorial office of the Sovetskaya
muzika
monthly, a concert hall, the department of foreign contacts, and
a
low-priced but (by Moscow standards) elegant restaurant open only
to
Composers' Union members. Those blocks of flats were inhabited by over
a
hundred families belonging to the country's most eminent
composers,
musicologists, and performers - among them, on floor 6,
Shostakovich,
and a floor below him, Aram Khachaturian and Dmitri
Kabalevsky. Nearby
there also lived Mstislav Rostropovich and Leonid Kogan.

That time I was in luck. It turned out that not only
was
Shostakovich in Moscow but he agreed to spare some time to meet
me.
Before this happened I wasted much time finding his phone number,
since
in the Soviet Union there have been no phone directories for years,
and
to get any number required detective skills. A meeting could be
held
only after settling the date on the phone, which in fact was not
easy
due to the endless composers' duties. The appointment finally took
place
after several days and a dozen or so phone conversations with
his
secretary at the Composers' Union. Finally, she notified me that I
was
to appear at such and such an hour a.m. and to be absolutely
punctual.
(As I learned later on, punctuality was demanded and observed to
an
extreme degree by Shostakovich, which, by the way, was one of the
few
characteristics he shared with Prokofiev.)

The appointment was
to
take place at his office in the Russian Republic Composers' Union.
When
I arrived at the arranged time and entered the building, a
typical
Russian babushka sitting in the corridor at the gate
entrance
asked me my business. (Almost every Moscow tenement-house employs
a
concierge.) After a lift had taken me to the second floor
(Shostakovich
lived four floors up), I entered a spacious secretarial
office, as busy
as a large post office. Despite the crowd of clients and
general
confusion, the employees clearly had complete control over
everything
because a secretary, who knew exactly who I was and why I'd
come,
immediately approached me. A half-opened door to the left led to a
big
office. Far ahead, at the end of this room two people were standing,
one
of whom seemed to resemble Shostakovich. I had barely managed to
take
off my coat before this man approached me - and it was
indeed
Shostakovich.

He was shorter than I'd imagined. Despite the
early
hour, he was dressed in an official dark navy blue suit and snow
white
shirt, but, in contrast to his immaculate attire, he was unshaven.
He
spoke to me in a muffled, faintly hoarse, and unexpectedly high
voice,
chaotically uttering the following words: "A vi, kak govorytie -
tak
skazat, po russky? Sprechen Sie Deutsch? Parlez-vous francais? Do
you
speak, tak skazat, English?" These questions sounded bizarre since
for
three years we had carried on our correspondence in Russian -
and
afterwards I found out that, apart from a bit of English,
Shostakovich
spoke no foreign language!

With a hand gesture, he invited
me into
the big room on the left. He did it in an extremely formal manner,
full
of reserve, without any polite facial expression. Only later on was I
to
learn that towards the people whom he hardly knew, he was always
stiff
and inaccessible. Shostakovich immediately took a pack of cigarettes
out
of his pocket, lit one, and inhaled deeply. The meeting began
with
conventional questions asked by him as if in a hurry: where did I
study,
under whom, etc. It would have been less peculiar had I not
repeatedly
written about all this in my letters. Had he forgotten - or not
read
them carefully? Did he ask such questions to start a conversation
and
not listen to the answers? Certainly my answers made no impression
on
him. His face was very vivid, but solely due to its nervous twitches
and
darting eyes. Only when I showed him the score of my First Piano
Sonata
did he take notice. I even thought I saw some interest in his
face.

We sat down at the piano, Shostakovich taking
the
seat on the right side of the instrument. He quickly took off
his
old-fashioned, round-rimmed glasses, put on some others (even
more
obsolete), and began to browse nervily through my score. While I
was
playing, he carefully followed the music, turning pages. In this
big,
almost empty office, in which there were a desk, a small table,
office
cupboards, and two concert pianos, the reverberation was so huge
that
the music resounded unbearably and sounds almost blended with
one
another. Then a strange thought came to my mind that next door, in
the
secretarial office, people must be saying "What on earth is that
racket
in Shostakovich's office?", and that someone would appear and stop
it.
And at that precise moment, my fear came true.

I'd almost
finished
playing when a young man came into the office without having
knocked on
the door, heading for the piano at a brisk pace. Shostakovich
sprang to
his feet, greeted him and said: "Let me introduce you: Polish
composer
Krzysztof Meyer, composer Andrei Yakovlevich Eshpay. This is a
very good
composer, you know, a very good composer. In addition," he told
me with
a stone-like face, "he plays by himself." They quickly exchanged
some
remarks and Eshpay left the office. "Your sonata is, I would
say,
interesting, good music and, I would say, I like it. And what else,"
he
suddenly asked warmly, "will you show me? A string quartet?"

He had
a
look at this and suddenly his kind expression vanished as fast as it
had
arrived. "Why this different notation?" he asked abruptly. "This is
the
fashion now, is it?" I tried to explain to him that such music
couldn't
be registered by means of traditional signs. "Yes, yes, so this is
the
fashion now." He repeated this sentence as if not listening to what
I'd
said. He leafed through three pages and instantly, as if he had seen
the
score, remarked: "Here should be A sharp, not C. Shouldn't it?" I
looked
at the notes. Absolutely! In a second, he'd detected a mistake,
proving
that he'd immediately grasped the sense of music alien to him.

As we played through the final movement of the
piece
four-handed, he repeated his earlier sentence as if I hadn't shown
him
the quartet at all: "Your sonata is interesting, good music. I liked
it,
I would say, very much. It is also good that you play it by
yourself,
because every composer should play the piano." At each of our
subsequent
meetings, he would repeat this sentence.

He then got up from
the
piano, went over to the desk, sat down with his back to the window,
and
again took the pack of cigarettes out of the pocket. Though I've
never
smoked, for a while I was curious to see whether he would offer me
one.
Yet he pulled out only one cigarette, lit it and, for a moment,
seemed
lost in thought. All of a sudden, he came round and again a
certain
kindness appeared in his face. For the third time he repeated the
same
sentence about my sonata. Then he sat up: "A concert of
your
music should be organized, here, at the Composers' Union. We will make
a
concert, make a concert. It is necessary to make concerts
interchangeably
between composers' unions, between Warsaw and
Moscow."

He said it in a
stifled, hoarse, high treble, swallowing
syllables and repeating certain
words a few times. Then he added that in
the near future he was coming to
Poland. When I asked when he was coming
and whether it was to do with the
"Warsaw Autumn" festival, he replied:
"No, not with the 'Warsaw Autumn',
no, no. I will write to you when I am
coming. I will write a letter."

I
never received such a letter. Nor
did I ever hear anything more about
wanting to organize interchangeable
concerts between the Unions. Maybe he
forgot about it soon thereafter;
or maybe it was only meant as an
expression of kindness. Meanwhile I was
so much looking forward to this
appointment that the conversation
completely stopped. I wanted to learn a
few things, to ask about various
matters linked to his music, but my
efforts to rekindle our talk
resulted in failure. Shostakovich was on pins
and needles, lighting one
cigarette after another, almost literally waving
away my questions.

For instance, I wanted very much to
know why his
early incidental music for Hamlet, written in 1932 for
the
Vakhtangov Theatre, was so grotesque and comic and without
any
correspondence to Shakespeare's drama. "Because such was the
director's
concept," he rapidly rejoined before I finished the sentence.
When I
mentioned that on Prague radio I'd heard his May Day
symphony,
at that time unknown and rarely performed, he almost
pretended that
he hadn't heard me. I became aware that he had not the
slightest wish to
discuss his music. But when I mentioned that I had just
bought the
scores of his quartets, his face showed satisfaction. "Oh,
quartets." He
got excited. "Yes, quartets. Give me the score, I'll sign
it." And to my
astonishment he grabbed the first volume.

Opening it, he
paused for
thought, and asked: "And how precisely is your name spelled?" I
was
totally taken aback. Such a question after three years of
relatively
regular correspondence! I should have noticed that in none of
his
letters did he write my surname, first name, and address without
a
mistake. And that is how it remained till the end of an
acquaintance
lasting more than ten years which, with the passage of time,
turned into
a genuinely close friendship. Nor did I then know that the nice
words he
wrote in the score were merely one of two standard dedications
which he
almost automatically wrote down for everybody, close and
distant
acquaintances, autograph collectors and friends: "With fond
memories" or
"With best wishes".

And so my first meeting with
Shostakovich came to
an end. His final words were as follows: "That sonata
of yours is
interesting, good music. I liked it, I would say, a lot. It is
good that
you play it by yourself, because every composer should play the
piano."
He led me back to the secretarial office and, while I was putting
my
coat on, he talked to somebody else. I left the office in
Niezdanova
Street with the conviction that I would probably never get to
know this
man better.

We met for the second time in
March
1968. From our correspondence it was more and more evident that
my
approach to contemporary music was very different from his
traditional
views on the subject, which he underlined clearly several
times. Thus I
did not anticipate much from our ensuing conversation.

I
remember
walking to his flat and, having a little time left, standing in
front of
the house in Niezdanova Street, watching the traffic. Nearby a
group of
musicologists passionately discussed the forthcoming first
post-war
official meeting with West German composers. Across the street,
three
famous Moscow composers, very tipsy, were coming out of the
restaurant.
Surrounded by his employees, Tikhon Khrennikov was passing
some
instructions to them. Dmitri Kabalevsky, loaded with skis and
a
rucksack, got into a large car with his daughter. Everyone there was
in
the music world. It was noisy and busy. I was struck by the
contrast
between confusion, so typical of that place, and the tranquillity
of the
waning day - and also the presence of nature so perceptible in
Moscow at
that time: the smell of soil and melting snow, a sign of
coming
spring.

At the agreed hour I rang the bell of his flat. The door
was
opened by Maria Dmitrievna Kozhunova, Shostakovich's
long-serving
housemaid, followed by his young wife Irina Antonovna, and my
host who
literally ran into the corridor. Since the last time we met, he
had
lived through his first heart attack, broken his leg for the
second
time, and given up smoking - all of which he communicated to me
right
away: "Doctors have deprived me of all life's pleasures, all
life's
pleasures." To my great surprise he gave the impression of a
totally
different man. He emanated joie de vivre, was cheerful, and
in no
way resembled the low-spirited introvert of three and a half
years
before. He wore an incredibly ugly though carefully ironed suit of
a
rust-brown colour and a matching tie. With a warm gesture he invited
me
to his study.

It was an enormous room which in a strange way
revealed
a combination of good taste and a lack of any interest in
aesthetics.
Right at the entrance, on the left, there was an old and fairly
shabby
sofa, and a book-case with books thrown here and there. Over the
sofa
there was a familiar portrait of Shostakovich at the age of 13
painted
by Kustodiev, and, next to this, another small drawing by the
same
artist depicting Mitya in profile, playing the piano. On the other
side
of the room there were two pianos, both out of tune and clearly
used
only seldom by my host. On this wall were Shostakovich's
photographs,
one of which, hugely enlarged, depicted him sitting with his
back to a
piano. There were other photographs of him. (As I noticed after a
few
visits, these usually appeared very briefly on the wall -
passing
fancies, presumably.) There were pictures of Shebalin, Mahler,
and
Mussorgsky as well as caricatures of the Beethoven Quartet members
-
Tsyganov, the Shirinsky brothers, and Borisovsky - and a sculpture
of
Beethoven's head.

Elsewhere, the walls were decorated with a
poster
from a concert devoted to his music and framed diplomas of
honorary
doctorates. Between two enormous windows there were a desk with a
huge
lampshade (antique?), two grand silver candlesticks, and a
disordered
mass of objects: a box of traditional nibs, penholders for
fountain
pens, an old writing pad, a variety of pens, pencils, markers, and
the
penknives he used to cut cigarettes which evidently remained from
his
days as a chain-smoker. Nearby were an agenda book, two big inkstands,
a
telephone, and many other bits and pieces, and on the right side of
the
desk a table with a tape-recorder. A huge antique clock was
ticking
loudly and every half an hour it struck the time. Opposite the
windows
there was a huge - and, to be honest, fairly vulgar - portrait of
Nana,
the heroine of Zola's novel, painted, as I learned later, by a friend
of
Shostakovich, Peter Williams. There was also a set of
primitively
installed exercise-bars on which to practice gymnastics.

Shostakovich sat down on a swivel stool at the
piano,
placing me a fair distance away from him on the sofa by the
entrance.
Very excited, he started by asking my impressions of my journey
from
Siberia (I had just returned from Novosibirsk), about the
concerts
devoted to my compositions, and the people I had met there. Every
now
and then he interrupted me with comments: "Oh, Slonym, a
splendid
pianist" or "Kotlarevsky - such a good man, a real believer,
you
understand, a real believer." He seemed interested in everything down
to
the smallest detail. Then suddenly he changed the subject and began
to
tell me what to see in Moscow. Eventually he asked whether I had
brought
any of my pieces with me and when I told him about the recording of
my
symphony and the score of my new piano sonata, he exclaimed: "Very
well,
let me see it, let me see it!"

Irina Antonovna switched on
the
tape-recorder and Shostakovich sat down at the desk, listening to
the
music and simultaneously reading the score. His face was no
longer
cheerful; he was fully concentrated, his head leaning on his left
hand.
Occasionally he nervously tapped his cheek with fingers. While he
was
listening, Raisa Glezer, a Moscow musicologist living in the
adjoining
flat, came in. Having forgotten that he'd invited her,
Shostakovich
nearly jumped up with agitation: "Lock the door, lock...," he
wheezed.
Then he went back to listening to my symphony with an inscrutable
look.
After he'd finished, he began asking meticulous and, in
fact,
insignificant questions, as if to avoid expressing his opinion about
the
piece, which perhaps he did not like. The conversation continued in
a
more and more awkward manner. Suddenly, he turned to me with a
low,
almost apologetic voice: "And you have promised to play your sonata
for
me?"

I sat down at the piano and the situation from three
years
earlier was repeated. Again it was me who played, with him sitting on
my
right, turning pages. When I'd finished, he remained silent for
a
moment, and then said: "You play the piano very well." He reflected for
a
while and added in a low as if surprised voice: "Really marvellously."
Then
he took a look at the score, browsed through it, and added: "Such a
good
sonata, a pity that it's over." And unexpectedly he became roused:
"Why
didn't you write some more, some more?!" Once again he opened the
score on
the last page. "The sonata should be completed here" - he
browsed through
some empty pages at the end of the manuscript, moving
his finger across
them - "Oh, here you should complete it... Or, better,
here" - he moved his
finger a couple of centimetres upwards - "Or here"
- he showed another
spot. "A splendid sonata, you play the piano
perfectly."

I was in a good mood again. Meanwhile,
Irina Antonovna asked
us into a generously-set table in the next room
for tea. Shostakovich
quickly poured some wine and at one gulp emptied
the whole glass. He
emanated great joy and soon I found out why, when,
as if incidentally, he
mentioned that several days before he had
finished his Twelfth Quartet. "I
was working over it at Repino. Such
marvellous countryside there. It's a
pity you didn't come there; we
should have met there; not in Moscow but at
Repino."

I asked him
about the opus number of the new quartet. "It's so
difficult to say, so
difficult. But my sister in Leningrad knows all my
opuses, so I have to
ask her. Oh, by the way," he interjected, "do you know
how to say 'take
off the mute' in Italian? - because I have to put it in
the score. Not
'play without mute', but 'take off the mute'. Can you tell
me this? I
wrote this quartet for Tsyganov. I hope he wants to play it,
I
hope..."

I wanted to find out more about the new piece, but
gathered
only that it was "much more complex than the Fifth Quartet"
before
another subject was brought up. Shostakovich spoke faster and
faster,
and from time to time stopped eating and tapped a rhythm with
his
fingers on the table or played with a bottle-cork, tossing it from
one
hand to another and rolling it among plates. Then suddenly he
almost
burst out: "I can't look at this lamp over us!" (It was a
beautiful
crystal chandelier). "I'm always scared some part of it will fall
on my
head. It should be protected!" And more and more nervously he tossed
the
cork about on the table.

Then he took a sudden interest in
Poland
and Polish music. He recalled that his father had spoken
Polish
perfectly and recited a funny nursery rhyme by Jan Brzechwa. Then
he
added, as if excusing himself: "Maybe it displeases you,but I don't
like
Chopin too much. Um, for example, the A major prelude..." - and he
began to
sing in a muffled, high voice imitating playing a piano,
tossing his hands
in the air with an abandon more appropriate to one of
Liszt's
Études d'execution transcendante than to Chopin's
simple
miniature. Then, abruptly, he declared: "I can't sing. I've lost
my voice
completely."

Then, again, rapidly changing the subject: "Do
you know the
Polish composer, Grazyna Bacewicz?" As it turned out, he
knew Grazyna
Bacewicz and liked her music very much, though it differed
greatly from his
own work. When she died in the following year, he wrote
me a beautiful
letter full of sorrow, revealing how much he had
appreciated and liked this
outstanding composer. At the time, however,
he was satisfied solely with my
affirmative reply, passing quickly on to
the opinion that Lutoslawski was a
master and that Penderecki's
Passion contained too much slow music.
"Too much slow music," he
repeated. "In fact there's also too much slow
music in your symphony."
His good mood growing, he started to praise
Bartok: "He's such a good
composer." He fell into a dreamy mood. "You know,
his quartets are a
wonderful school for composers; every one is better and
better." Since
Bartok had visited the Soviet Union in 1929, I began to ask
him whether
he'd had a chance to meet him. "No, no, unfortunately not," he
butted
in. "Bartok was in Moscow at that time, and I don't know whether
you
know that I lived in Leningrad then."

He
was
talking almost nonstop and seemed pleased with his own,
often
unexpected, expressions. Next, he was telling me joyfully about the
new
opera of Moisei Vainberg, The Passenger. "This is an
amazing
work." He repeated it many times. "A remarkable opera." When
Raisa
Glezer eventually stood up, thinking it was time to go, he
demurred:
"Where are you all hurrying off to? Please stay longer, please.
Anyway,
we'll see each other tomorrow. Perhaps I'll come to your concert."
(The
following day I was to have my own concert in Moscow.)

While
saying
goodbye, two other funny episodes happened. At that time I was
thinking
of writing a monograph on him, so I asked him about the maiden
name of
his mother. Confused, he looked at his wife, as if not
comprehending the
question and Irina Antonovna, with calm tranquillity,
helped him out
with the answer. Then I presented him with a large and
beautiful
photograph of him which someone had given me in Novosibirsk. He
was
pleased: "Do you want my autograph? I'll put it down right away!"
Though
I wasn't expecting this, he grabbed an old pen and wrote a few words
on
the picture. Then, while handing it over to me, he withdrew his hand
and
put down something else. Before we'd even left the flat, he turned
and
disappeared into his study. All that remained was a memory of
an
unusually nice, warm, and wonderful meeting.

We
met
again in autumn 1969 on the occasion of the Moscow première
of
his Fourteenth Symphony. I arrived in Moscow on the day of the
concert,
8th October. I didn't realize how lucky I was since, because of
the
misty autumn weather, it was the only flight to arrive on time
that
week. It was impossible to get a ticket to the concert, but
my
cultivated contacts at the Composers' Union promised to help me.
Hours
later I was the lucky owner of an invitation; only on the following
day
did I find out that I had received it from the composer himself,
as
initially it had been meant for his son, Maxim.

The concert
was
attended by crowds of people and though it was not a sensation on a
par
with the world première of the Thirteenth Symphony, the seats
in
the Great Hall of the Tchaikovsky Conservatoire were full long
before
the Moscow Chamber Orchestra and its conductor, Rudolph Barshai came
on
stage. In the first part of the concert, Haydn's La Passione
was
sensationally performed but made scarcely any impression; it was
obvious
that everybody was waiting for the second part, for
Shostakovich's
symphony. The new piece was performed even more perfectly.
Galina
Vishnevskaya, Mark Reshetin, and the twenty-piece orchestra achieved
a
level of intensity seldom experienced. [See Russian Disc RD CD 11
192. -
I.M.] As I learned later, Barshai had taken several dozen
rehearsals before
the concert.

When the final sounds had died, I
expected thunderous
applause and a frenzy equivalent to the
premières of the Fifth and
Seventh symphonies - and certainly the
ovations went on for a long time.
Compared to regular concerts it was an
exceptional success with the
composer appearing onstage a dozen times.
Yet the audience seemed a bit
dismayed by the unusually concentrated,
profound music, whose character,
atmosphere, and subject matter
warranted reflection rather than external
expressions of enthusiasm.

Off-stage Shostakovich was surrounded by a
crowd of his admirers. Before
me was Aram Khachaturian, who kissed him,
crying: "Mitya, many thanks,
you're a genius!" Shostakovich made a wry face
and thanked him with one
word. When I approached him to express my
gratitude for this crucial
experience, not only did he not say a word but
seemed not to recognize
me at all. When I added that I'd come straight from
Warsaw, he stared at
me blankly. To an acquaintance of mine, who also
congratulated him,
Shostakovich responded with a few warm words. This must
have looked
strange, since my acquaintance asked me suspiciously: "Have you
really
met before?" Many years later, Irina Shostakovich told me that
the
composer had been so highly disturbed that he had been unable to
react
normally when meeting his friends. And I recalled the story of
his
meeting with Anna Akhmatova.

They had known each other from
before
the war. The great poetess appreciated the composer very
much,
dedicating one of her poems to him. During Zhdanov's
slanderous
campaigns, their mutual contacts were broken, but they met again
one day
in the early Sixties at Komarovo, near Leningrad. Smartly dressed
and
well-groomed, Akhmatova paid Shostakovich a visit. The composer,
never
particular about his attire, greeted her in casual holiday
wear.
Afterwards, they sat at the table in complete silence. Irina
Antonovna
served tea and they stayed silent. The silence went on for almost
an
hour, despite the attempts by the composer's wife to disrupt
it.
Finally, Akhmatova stood up. They never met again. A couple of
months
later Akhmatova died.

Two days after
this
disconcerting encounter at the Moscow Conservatory, I met
Shostakovich
at the Bolshoi Theatre. As usual he spent the intermission in
his seat.
He reacted instantly upon seeing me. "Good evening! How about the
last
'Warsaw Autumn'?" We arranged a meeting for the following morning at
his
place, though he apologized in advance for "not being able to receive
me
as he ought to".

Knowing his predilection for punctuality, I
showed
up right on time. The door was opened by Shostakovich, so upset that
he
was almost trembling: "I've been phoning everywhere for you! I tried
all
the hotels! Where have you been?" "What happened?", I asked,
worried
about his anxiety. "What do you mean what happened? Can't you see?
The
lift isn't working! You have to walk up to the seventh floor! I
wanted
to change the date of our meeting! But I couldn't find you anywhere!
I'm
so sorry!" True, the lift wasn't working, but I was unable to
convince
him that it didn't matter at all. He carried on apologizing
and
explaining that it had recently been out of order so often...

That
day he was in a bad mood and probably felt unwell. He didn't smile
once.
When I'd taken a closer look at him, I was sorry to see that, since
the
previous year, he'd aged more than in the previous four. Nervously
he
fixed and cleaned his new, much stronger glasses again and again.
His
complexion was unhealthy and the skin of his hands was
peeling
alarmingly. As usual, he was dressed in a bizarre way - in an old
grey
suit (judging from its cut, for official occasions) and a
creased
flannel shirt.

The talk began about Beethoven whose Ninth
Symphony he
had heard in concert not long before. "I've not heard it for a
long
time, but at last I can see how marvellously written this work is!
With
Beethoven we have everything" - he was enthusiastic - "Both
classicism
and romanticism and the 20th century." He became lost in
thought. "So
many astonishing works," he added after a while. "So many
wonderful
discoveries. Not only in the Ninth Symphony - also in the late
sonatas,
especially the Hammerklavier." He went to the piano and
played a
fragment of the Adagio. "All is already there. And also in
the
Grosse Fuge... I like the Grosse Fuge a lot." Suddenly
he
got excited. "Let's play the Grosse Fuge."

He went to
the
closet, took out the score, and handed it to me. "You'll play the
parts
of the first violin and viola on one piano and I'll play the parts
of
the second violin and cello on the other." "And how will we split
the
notes?" I asked, seeing that there was only one score.
Shostakovich
waved this objection aside. "Never mind, I'll play by heart!"
And though
it may seem incredible, Shostakovich, who at that time found
it
difficult to play the piano, not only played both parts quite
efficiently
in terms of a technique, but also made not a single mistake,
performing
the whole of this complex piece from memory!

Later,
however, he appeared tired and withdrawn. He didn't
even react to the
arrival of Moisei Vainberg. He only asked if I'd brought
some music of
mine as he wanted to see my new pieces. I showed him a
violin
concerto brought specially for this purpose and, afterwards, a
new
symphony for choir and orchestra. He wanted to hear both pieces,
but
declared it impossible. "You know, my wife isn't here." He made
a
helpless gesture. "I don't know how to use the tape-recorder." He
was
genuinely stunned when I showed him how easy it was.

As usual
he
listened with the score in front of him. "Such a marvellous
symphony!
Splendid, splendid! I like it so much." Then he assumed an
apologetic
expression: "Please, let me have this recording." I was amazed
for a
moment. Then Vainberg whispered to me (in Polish): "He really likes
it.
Please present him with your recording." Shostakovich noticed
Vainberg's
reaction and became even more uncomfortable: "You think I impose
on you?
Not at all, indeed! Can you spare me this recording?"

As we
were
parting, he recommended an incredibly long list of people I should
visit
in Leningrad, where I was going the following day. "And when you
return
to Moscow, please call me so we can meet again." Need I add that
when I
called again after a week, he expressed no interest in meeting me,
and -
like the year before - he didn't show up at the Moscow concert
devoted
to my compositions, despite repeatedly assuring me he would come
only a
day earlier? Once again he paid a few compliments to my Second
Symphony
and then we said goodbye - this time for a year.

All
my meetings with Shostakovich were fascinating, though
also
nerve-wracking as one could never predict his moods and demeanour.
A
closer familiarity developed between us in the early Seventies, but
even
then he used to surprise me with his behaviour and questions.
His
letters, too, reflected his character - full of contradictions,
often
sparse but sometimes meticulously describing insignificant details.
For
me, those letters manifested his anxieties and experiences better
than
our chaotic, nervous conversations.

Unfortunately, most of
his
letters mainly concerned his incessantly declining health.
Everybody
knew that the developing paralysis of his hands, not to mention
his lung
cancer, were incurable, but Shostakovich still harboured a belief
in
recovery, though perhaps, as in many such cases, it was
self-deception.
"I'll live a hundred years," he said to a journalist of
the
Frankfurter Allgemeinen in 1973. "I have iron health and
will
live a long time," he assured one of his biographers at a time
when
climbing a few stairs at the entrance of his house in Moscow caused
him
much trouble.

The theme of his illness and recovery recurred in
his
letters: "I feel much better," he wrote to me in January 1968.
"I've
come back home after a four-month stay in hospital. I broke my leg.
It's
all right now, though I can hardly climb the stairs, or, especially,
go
downstairs." In a letter of 2nd May 1970, I read: "I've been at
Kurgan
for a long time now and I am treated by the eminent doctor G.
A.
Ilizarov. He's trying to 'bring into order' my hands and legs."
Two
months later, he continued: "The treatment has had no
favourable
results. In mid August I'll go to Kurgan again to have Ilizarov
complete
the treatment, as he says, 'with a consonant chord'."

From his letters I knew that he also suffered
from
creative problems. In spite of such masterpieces as the
Fourteenth
Symphony, and the Twelfth and Thirteenth Quartets, he was losing
faith
in his skills. "Nothing comes out anymore," he told me once.
"I'm
finished..." In one letter, he complained that he couldn't finish
the
film music for King Lear. In 1971, I received a depressing
letter
from him: "Dear Krzysztof! Thank you for your Third Quartet.This is
a
great joy for me and an honour that you've dedicated your new piece to
me
for my 65th birthday. Thank you. I've been ill recently. I'm ill now,
too.
I still hope, though, that I'll regain my strength. I'm very weak
now. This
summer I finished another symphony, the Fifteenth. Probably I
shouldn't
compose anymore. But I can't live without it. The symphony has
four
movements. It includes exact quotations from Rossini, Wagner,
and
Beethoven. This and that written under Mahler's influence. I'd
really
like to make you acquainted with this symphony." This letter
accurately
reflects his great modesty. He wrote these words on the eve of
his
second heart attack.

I visited him after he had left hospital.
He
was in an unusually cheerful, almost excited mood. When I entered
the
room, he cried out joyfully: "Wonderful that you're here! Let's start
by
exchanging souvenirs. Souvenirs first!" All of his life he
liked
receiving and giving presents, yet never precious ones; as a rule,
small
gifts, funny or practical, were the most welcome. Acquaintances
knew
that his favourite objects were candlesticks, so he had plenty
delivered
on various occasions. He was as pleased as a child when, on
his
birthday, the room was lit with as many candles as his age in years.

At this meeting he talked a lot - in fact nonstop, not allowing
anyone
else to speak. He expounded mainly on his illness, or rather on how
he
had overcome it, as he happily thought. Among the assembled guests,
I
remember most of all his friend of youth, the film director Leo
Arnshtam,
who regarded him with the highest admiration, almost
adoration.
Shostakovich jumped from one subject to another, enjoying
everything,
before suddenly exclaiming: "Lovka, you know, Krzysztof
Ivanich (for
several years he had referred to me thus) tells me that
there's flue in
Cracow too now. Not only here, not only here. And I
don't have flue!"

Such moments were fewer and
fewer. When we saw each
other for the last time, in April 1974, he was
very weak and tired. He
confessed: "Now I know for sure that I'll never
recover. But I've learned
not to think about it."

This last meeting
was particularly depressing.
He sat on the chair, almost not moving,
gesturing only with his fit left
hand. He couldn't see well, which his
thick glasses indicated. (He admitted
that his short-sightedness was
more than fifteen diopters.) Irina Antonovna
brought a big bottle of
Napoleon brandy and he boasted that his doctors had
allowed him to drink
alcohol again. We sat for several hours, slowly
sipping cognac.
Shostakovich gradually became more animated. Not much,
however, was left
of his old spontaneity and vehemence. Only once when the
talk was about
Mahler did he cry out: "His symphonies!... I like the First
one best...
and also the Second... and Third... Also the Fourth is
wonderful!... and
Fifth. Also the Sixth and Seventh... The Eighth is
marvellous... and the
Ninth!!!... yes, and the Tenth. But if I was told I
had only one hour to
live, I'd like most to listen to the final part of the
Song of the
Earth."

For years I had been encouraging him
to write a
clarinet quintet. He pondered on it: "Who knows... I've never
thought
about it... but this is an interesting idea." During our last
meeting he
was not so convinced: "I don't like Brahms' Clarinet Quintet. I
prefer
the Horn Trio. Once I heard Tsyganov playing it often... And perhaps
I
don't know the Quintet so well... Mozart's Quintet is splendid...
but
Brahms's?... I guess Brahms is primarily a symphonist..." And
suddenly
he got excited: "I like the Fourth Symphony most, it's the best
one.
Then the Second, the First, and the Third least of all, that's
for
sure."

On that occasion it was him who wanted
to
show me his pieces: the Songs to Verses by Marina Tsvetayeva and
the
Fourteenth Quartet. And so the roles were reversed: he sat on the
chair
which I often used to occupy; I took the seat at the desk and
listened
to his music, holding in my hands the unpublished scores. If I can
put
it so immodestly, his new vocal cycle did not convince me at all,
so
after having listened to the piece, I sat over the score in silence
for
a long time, just as he had when he didn't like my music.
Since,
however, he once wrote in one of his letters that "the best
relations
should always be kept between us and this only requires that we
tell
each other the truth", I decided to reveal my reservations to him.
He
replied with sadness: "Yes, it is necessary to be always in search,
one
can't repeat oneself." Hence, later, I was very pleased to
congratulate
him on his new quartet, whose first movement was
particularly
delightful. He stated that he composed quartets easily, but
the really
complex task was to write a string trio. "At least that's what
Edik
Denisov told me," he added, smiling inscrutably.

At that last
meeting
he kept returning to the past; he even played on the piano the
subject
of the counterpoint exam set by Glazunov. He referred to Shebalin,
to
his old students. Once again he recollected Kotlarevsky with
pleasure.
It was clear that he lived mainly on his memories. His desk was
loaded
with mementoes of the past which I'd not seen before: photographs of
him
with the Beethoven Quartet, the portrait of Igor Stravinsky, and
the
diploma of the Academie Charles de Cros for the recording of
Katerina
Izmailova. When saying goodbye, he said that it wouldn't be
possible
to set a date for another meeting. "Because, you know, I'm a very
moody
person," he explained, adding: "I believe we'll meet in the very
near
future."

We saw each other no more. We had
many
phone conversations, I received a couple of letters, and once a score
of
the Thirteenth Symphonywith a nice dedication arrived. On 10th
August
1975 I got a telegram informing me of his death. I went to the
funeral,
very official and pompous. A few days after I got back to Poland,
his
last letter came, scribbled with his nearly paralyzed hand during
his
stay in hospital at the end of July:

"Dear
Krzysztof!
Thank you for remembrance, thank you for your letter... I'm back
in
hospital again due to my heart and lung problems. I can hardly
write
with my right hand. Please don't be upset by this
distorted
handwriting... With my best regards. D. Shostakovich. P.S. Though
it was
very hard for me, I've written a sonata for viola and piano. -
D.
Sh."

If I was to add something else to these
incomplete
recollections about Shostakovich, I could only refer to one of
the
letters of Thomas Mann, who wrote that when he had personally met
Gustav
Mahler, he realized for the first time in his life that he had a
truly
great man before him. Shostakovich likewise emanated a unique
greatness,
goodness, and some irresistible magnetic power.